The Umbrella Revolution on Film

Presented by THE COLLOQUIUM FOR UNPOPULAR CULTURE. Cosponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and NYU Department of East Asian Studies.

FILMS (all with English subtitles):

DRONE FOOTAGE OF UMBRELLA REVOLUTION (dir. Nero Chan, 2014), 3 min

Remarkable drone-panoramic shots of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators lining the highways of Hong Kong’s Central Business District on September 29, 2014.

THE SILENT STRUGGLE (dir. Ka-yi Leung, 2014), 4 min

Deaf viewers of television coverage of Hong Kong’s Occupy Movement were denied sign-language interpretation of the unfolding events. Whither equality?

THE INTERVIEWS (dir. Birdy Chu, 2015), 7 min.

Young Occupiers share their dreams of Hong Kong’s future.

UMBRELLA TREE (dir. Sai-ho Choi and James Kong, 2014), 2 min

The Occupiers–from 3pm on October 1 to 4am on October 2–articulating ordinary thoughts in Unordinary Times.

VAN DRIVERS (dir. Kanas Liu, 2015), 23 min.

On the fifth day of the Occupy Central movement, a student union demand went out for universal suffrage and unscreened nominees. A team of voluntary truck drivers delivered food supplies and protective equipment to Lung Wu Road, Admiralty.

KARL (dir. Huang Yuqing/ Tang Yuze/ Yang Cheng, 2015), 10 min.

Students from CYHK’s Cultural and Religious Studies department organized a strike group and spontaneously participated n the Umbrella Movement. Karl, a member of this strike group, is caught between social and familial pressures.

Mr. Wong, a 90-years-old New Territories farmer, has not written for a decade. On the eve of the clearance of the Admiralty Occupy zone, and with transcription and photocopying help of many locals, he produces a heartfelt “Public Letter To My Hong Kong Compatriots.” Did anyone read it? What will happen when the zone is cleared?

RAISE THE UMBRELLAS (dir. Evans Chan, work-in-progress), 24 min

PANELISTS:

Evans Chan is a director, playwright and cultural critic. His films include To Liv(e) (1992), Crossings (1995), and The Map of Sex and Love (2001). He is the subject of the recently published Postcolonialism, Diaspora and Alternative Histories: The Cinema of Evans Chan.

Jung-Bong Choi is associate professor of Cinema Studies at NYU and author of, among other essays and books, Digitalization of Television in Japan: State, Economy, and Discourse (2014).

Oscar Ho, former Exhibition Director at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and founding director at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, is the Director of the MA Programme in Cultural Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

No RSVP required.

This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition On The Art and Outcomes of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement: At The First-Year Anniversary.